1.# - Minimum Hardware Requirements

At the time of this writing, for i386 DSL you need at least 16 megs of ram to boot. This does not provide X windows functionality, only console (at boot run 'dsl 2' for console only). 24 megs is the recommended MINIMUM for X windows. Of course, the more ram the better, since thats where you're working, in ram.

You will find that with only the minimum of ram the most you will be able to do is use primarily the preinstalled software that comes with DSL.

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This experiment was conducted with the original DSL kernel, which I believe was based on knoppix 3.2 (DSL versions up to and including version 0.5.3.1)

There have been reports that newer versions of DSL do not work with a 486SX CPU because the newer kernel requires a math coproccessor that is built into 486DX, Pentium and newer CPUs.

So if you have a 486SX I would try version 0.5.3.1 , or maybe 0.7.3 (2nd generation DSL system) if the current version of DSL will not boot.

For newer versions of DSL, you should boot with this command:

dsl base noicons

and your bootup will require less RAM because the desktop icons and the "Slit" applications in the lower right corner won't be automatically launched. Also, if you are using a customized myDSL CD-R disk, the "base" command will prevent DSL files from being autoloaded and using up your limited RAM.

By Anonymous at Mon, 2005-01-10 03:20 | login or register to post comments